Users of portable communication devices (e.g., mobile telephones, handhelds, media players, personal digital assistants (PDAs), BlackBerry™, pocket PCs, Smart Phones, etc.) typically enter into service contracts with service providers for voice and/or data services. The services are often organized into service plans that can be subscribed to by the user. Service plans can provide data services, voice services or a combination of voice and data services often referred to as “bundled” services. The service plans typically allocate limited amounts of minutes, bandwidth or storage based on the price of the plan. A voice service plan, for example, may charge a flat monthly fee for 400 “anytime” minutes and 200 night and weekend minutes. If the user exceeds these limits during the month they incur additional charges for each additional resource unit consumed, typically at a higher rate (e.g., $0.45/min) than the average rate (e.g., $0.15/min) for budgeted resource units. A data service plan, for example, may have a flat monthly fee for a certain amount of data storage capacity (e.g., 100 MB) for email and other data, as well as a surcharge rate (e.g., $0.01/MB) if the user consumes additional capacity during the month.
At present, users do not have a convenient way to review the current account balance(s) of service plans. If a user wants to know an account balance they must log into their account(s) on a Web page, call customer service, or send a special command via their mobile telephone. Thus, there is a need for improved access to user account balance and other account usage information.